


Just Another Day

by MyKaleidoscope



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyKaleidoscope/pseuds/MyKaleidoscope
Summary: I was thinking about shelter-in-place and how it just kind of happened to us, and how we've sort of adapted, and I wondered how our hero might view his new world. So I wrote a short little thing.
Kudos: 12





	Just Another Day

I never expected that day to be different from any other. I woke up late - that’s an unfortunate side-effect of insomnia. Grabbed a cup of coffee before I hopped on the train. It tasted like shit. I didn’t care. Maybe if I’d realized it would be the last cup of coffee I’d ever have, I would have been a little more particular. Not Starbucks. I’m from Seattle and we hate that shit. Seattle has - had - dozens of excellent coffee shops. Starbucks is not one of them. They buy cheap beans and roast them into oblivion. There was a time when I would have debated this fact for hours. Well, minutes, anyway. I would have won the debate before it went on too long. That goes for pretty much any subject, not just coffee. But I guess I’m rambling. Sometimes I do that. At least, I used to.

I know that day changed the world for everyone; not just me. It’s hard to understand that. I know my experience; I can only imagine what it was like for everyone else. I'd say something lame like, “We’re all in it together,” but I never got the chance. I...left, I suppose. Or maybe I just slept. I don’t know what happened. I just know that twenty years passed, and that was that. I was back, and the world had changed, and somehow while I was away, I became a superhero. Not what I had in mind.

The thing is, you think a life-changing event comes with fireworks and music and who knows what - you think it’s going to matter, somehow. But the truth is, life just goes on, and there you are, fighting zombies and crawling through sludge and thinking, well, this is what I do, now. It is what it is. I heard that on some TV show and damned if it isn’t true. It is what it is. File the paperwork, put on the uniform, insert the sample, go for a beer with Barney. Then one day you insert the sample and you trigger a resonance cascade. Well, that happened. Life goes on. It looks like nothing you ever imagined, but it is what it is. And that’s how you survive.

And then one day it’s not that, anymore - it’s something new, and more terrifying, but at least you’re free, and your friends are there - friends you thought you’d never see again. And life is fucking dangerous, but you can survive, if you’ve got your wits about you. Maybe you can. Maybe you can’t. It is what it is. You don’t question it. When you’re fighting for survival, you don’t think about it - you just do it. You don’t celebrate living each moment; you're just glad to be alive. Or maybe you’re glad to not be dead. Either way, you take life for granted even as you’re thrilled to still be in it. I’m not making sense. It doesn’t make sense, not when you live the way I have. 

I guess what I want to say is, don’t take anything at face value. The most ordinary day might see the rug being pulled out from under you. Get the good coffee. Spend time with your friends. Get that beer they owe you, and then buy one for them. You never know when everything might go to hell.


End file.
